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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23461024">better luck next time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/clytemnestras/pseuds/clytemnestras'>clytemnestras</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy &amp; O'Keefe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Control Issues, Eating Disorders, F/F, Post-Canon, Underage Drinking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 15:41:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,070</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23461024</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/clytemnestras/pseuds/clytemnestras</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>all the gold<br/>and the guns<br/>and the girls<br/>(couldn't get you off)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Heather Duke/Heather McNamara, Heather Duke/Veronica Sawyer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>better luck next time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyg_rl/gifts">happyg_rl</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this has a lot of canon-typical awfulness, offensive language, unhealthy relationships/sex and some oblique references to eating disorders so if any of that sounds like Too Much then this might not be for you.</p><p>If you thought I couldn't possibly find more ways to write sociopathic rich kids you were dead wrong</p><p>(Also title and summary from gold, guns, girls by metric)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Heather Duke has never wanted for anything. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If she asked for it, pouted her lower lip, or cried </span>
  <em>
    <span>Daddy</span>
  </em>
  <span>, diamante tears falling from her lashes and into the night then Heather would have it and the case to match.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tiffany bracelets and other meaningless silver trinkets, dutiful worshippers, the good brains to keep one step behind the golden girl, to shield herself from the sniper shot then slip in to take her place, perfectly groomed in more ways than one. She even had the pick of the litter of the walking jockstraps of Westerberg High, especially once Queen C. started grazing in older pastures. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She'd overheard Ram (rest in fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>pieces)</span>
  </em>
  <span> tell Kurt once that banging her was like banging a beer fridge. You know, cold, convenient, and a bitch to keep on without blowing its fuse. He'd choked on his laughter then, and choked on his own spit next time she wrapped her mouth around his prick and sank her teeth in just hard enough for fear to cloud his dreamy fucking eyes. She can't say he's entirely wrong though, because frankly whether it be his sweating, meaty hands palming at her tits or her own manicured ones she can't say it's given her a thrill, or not one comparable with getting a conspiratorial grin from Heather the former, or sending a girl running into the bathroom, mascara running rivers down her chubby cheeks.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So maybe she doesn't feel anything, not even when life goes on, eventually. She crocodile weeps at another suicide PSA assembly and Heather M. holds her hand before the memorial pep rally like she didn't tell her to choke on her mom's valium and Veronica smirks and waves her bony little fingers at her from across the lunch room because there's a clear path to her now, no more huddled adoring masses worshiping at the altar of Scrunchie. New world order, baby, the reign of the Heather as dead as its most revered monarch. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So Heather doesn't want, and she certainly doesn't </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but if Heather Duke has ever known how to do anything it's </span>
  <em>
    <span>need</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She needs her money-green jeep, she needs to slather her body in black musk and vanilla scented body butter before bed every night and she needs to have absolute control over goddamn</span>
  <em>
    <span> something</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jason Dean thought he'd had to blow Westerberg to high heaven before a Heather would voluntarily share oxygen with the loser-freaks on the scummy bottom rungs of the hierarchy. He couldn't have known that turning himself into the last misfit martyr had made highschool into a freak-positive paradise. Veronica and Dumptruck and that loser wallflower chick cavorted around the halls and the lunchroom, often with Heather McNamara in-tow like any of that was fucking acceptable and more than once Heather Duke had sat alone on the middle table, carefully counting out her apple slices and celery sticks, scaring off bottomfeeders with a scowl. The natural order was more than disturbed, frankly it was certifiable. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Do you know what happens after the citizens of a dictatorship have seen and buried the body?" Veronica sits on the edge of Heather's table, swinging one leg and picking at the baguette her hands.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather turns her nose up. "I don't break bread with people who cavort with wannabe terrorists. Actually, I don't break bread at all, carbs are Friday foods and frankly yours is stinking up my zen circle, so kindly fuck off, please."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"But Heather, my love," Veronica takes a bite of the sandwich, chewing and grinning and spewing debris across the white table. "You haven't answered my question. Sorry. Should I have phrased it like a survey?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Cute, Ronnie. Remember, you were, how did she put it?" Heather taps her chin with a black painted nail, then slowly swaps her pointer finger for the middle one. "Flying with the eagles, that was it. You were flying just as high as the rest of us. Your glum nice girl act doesn't work on me, sweetheart. I know deep down you're just as angry and cruel as I am."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica smiles at her again and swallows pronouncedly. "The answer, by the way, is that they tear down all the statues. Anything that reminds them of the old regime ends up rubble. Adapt or die, baby. Sit with us any time." Veronica winks and slips away, leaving Heather to begin her count again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Are you very sad, Heather?" McNamara is sprawled on the palatial bed, the one Heather Duke begged her father for after Heather Chandler got it and spent an entire slumberparty spreading her limbs and making angels on the creasing sheets, whilst she and Mac were forced to peer up at her from the plush carpeted floor.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather rolls her eyes and continues reading aloud from </span>
  <em>
    <span>Moby Dick</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mac can't help herself though, all limpid eyes, absolutely pure in her concern because there was nothing else in the cavernous space behind her eyes to possibly fill it. She tugs at the hem of Heather's socks, kicking her golden legs up and down without cohesive rhythm and babbles and babbles and </span>
  <em>
    <span>babbles</span>
  </em>
  <span> on. "You haven't been right since, well since </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything</span>
  </em>
  <span> happened. You don't </span>
  <em>
    <span>talk</span>
  </em>
  <span> anymore and you don't seem to have any fun and </span>
  <em>
    <span>when</span>
  </em>
  <span> was the last time we even played croquet? Did you know Martha's uncle used to play it at Harvard?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather slams the book shut and rolls over so she's pinning Mac, pressing her into the sheets. "Is this what you want?" She snarls, letting her weight settle over Mac's hips, feels her soft breasts rise and fall beneath her own sharper, flatter frame. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mac smiles at her, because of fucking course she does. "Don't tell Heather, well, obviously you can't now, but still, I could never say it before…"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather squeezes a hand around McNamara's wrist.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>Yeah</span>
  </em>
  <span>," she sighs. "That's what I mean. You were always the best at this part. Like showing me how to do things. To be quiet, or be still, or how to touch a guy so it would be over faster, or make it feel really good for me." The girls legs fall apart beneath Heather's weight. "I miss this."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather bites her lip and rolls away, facing the headboard and not listening to the soft, disappointed lilt to Mac's breath. "Well I don't, not anymore, Heather. Go ask Veronica since she's your new best friend. See if she wants to feel up your tits and count the bruises from the varsity guy's fingers and laugh about how he still couldn't get you off."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She can hear her move but Heather won't look, won't let herself watch the only friend she can even pretend to have walk out of her huge, empty fucking bedroom. It's a shock when the other girl throws her arms around Heather's shoulders and clutches her tightly, and she feels herself stiffen, her spine refusing to soften into the embrace. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"What </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> you want?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And Heather does not cry, and she absolutely does not do it in another girl's arms. "Nothing," she says, "I don't want anything," and picks up the book again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She throws a party, because god knows if you can't beat them, give them all alcohol poisoning. It takes a while for people to trickle in, and there's a moment where Heather is stood in her own livingroom, stitched into this emerald, taffeta drop waist dress that costs more that the maid's car thinking no one will show up, no one will see her in this stupid dress for a week when the maid finally finds her starved to death because there's hardly room to breathe, let alone </span>
  <em>
    <span>eat </span>
  </em>
  <span>and they'll have to bury her in it because it's so tight it may as well be fused to her cold skin.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mac bangs on the window grinning and clasping a bottle in one hand and a bemused Veronica in the other, jolting Heather from her macabre daydream. When she opens the door Mac launches herself at Heather, excitement bubbling over like the champagne in her hand and Heather gently eases herself free with only the slightest of grimaces. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica is wearing black pants, a black vest and a blue and red dogtooth blazer over the top. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That </span>
  <em>
    <span>bitch</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She looks around the living room as if she's never breached the castle walls before then grins at Heather. "Thanks for the invite, are we, dare I say it, calling a truce?" </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>McNamara bounces in place between them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather snatches the champagne bottle from Mac's cramping fingers and drinks deeply. "Just don't throw up on my rug."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It's around the time the room fills out and she's downed the whole bottle of Mac's champagne that Heather remembers why The Lady C never invited her to the college parties she staked out her cannon fodder. She kind of fucking hates these things, and she's not good at hiding it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After the first hour she would be shocked to find one of her father's prized antique vases without vomit pooling in the bottom of it and the magnolia carpets are spattered with truly inexplicable colours. When a swaying upperclassman girl howls </span>
  <em>
    <span>great party </span>
  </em>
  <span>right in her goddamn ear, Heather grinds her stiletto heel into the top of the moron's foot and tips her in the direction of the football team who are more than willing to catch her. Not to be outdone, the girl yelps and obliviously tosses her solo cup as she flails, splattering Heather's Oscar de la Renta dress with offensively cheap smelling beer. Heather feels fury flush through her whole body and for a moment the whole room goes quiet, cold, and bright. The vein in her right temple throbs hard enough she thinks she might be able to </span>
  <em>
    <span>hear</span>
  </em>
  <span> it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> A braying laugh from Veronica slices through the hush and Heather snarls, tearing upstairs to the relative serenity of her bedroom, fiddling ineffectively with the clasps of her dress as she goes. She's still there 10 minutes later, only half ensnared by green taffeta and with hot, angry tears already dry on her flushed cheeks when Veronica eases the door open.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"What the fuck do you want?" Heather scowls up at her from her pool of glimmering fabric on the edge of the bed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica eases the door shut behind her. "Heather, sweetie, and I ask this with the utmost affection, do you know how to stop being a snatch for five freaking minutes?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Get out."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Sorry, </span>
  <em>
    <span>sorry</span>
  </em>
  <span>, truce, I remember." Veronica raises her hands in mock surrender and flops down on the bed beside her. "At least let me help you from being swallowed by the creature from the black lagoon." </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather turns away but raises her arms. "If you tear it I'll murder you."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica snorts. "Scarier things have tried, my darling Duke, but you can give it your best shot." Her hands are too warm when they flicker against the clasps and begin to lift it over Heather's head, since there's no chance of the waist sliding over the curve of her hips. Heather finds herself shivering when the damned thing is off, less from the cold and more from the shock of Veronica's breath glancing along her spine. "Okay little miss muffet, you are officially free." </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather carefully lifts her bra straps back up where they've slipped and curls her arms around her chest. "Thanks. Now get out."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Hey," Veronica touches her shoulder and Heather shoots up.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Why did you even come here?" She draws her legs up, wrapping her arms around them and letting her head tip forward. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"You looked upset, I just wanted to clear the air, I guess…"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Not now. Tonight, in the general. And drop the stupid mother Theresa act, Veronica, I'm not one of your teenybopper friends." She's uncomfortably aware of Veronica's hand still branding the skin of her bare shoulder, of how bared she is, unmasked and exposed in every possible way.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica sighs and the bed shifts as she rolls back, let's herself fill the space like it's her right to. "Look Heather, I don't know if you've noticed but I went through </span>
  <em>
    <span>a lot </span>
  </em>
  <span>this year. I'm done with the mad, sad and dangerous to know bullshit." Her hand brushes against Heather's side, against her hip, the place where her dark underwear leaves welts across the skin. "Nihilism is so last decade. I'm trying this new thing where I don't expect everyone to treat everyone else like garbage because it's the natural order of things, and if I can convert the princess regent," she pinches down lightly, just where the skin is extra sensitive and a touch sore. "Then all the better."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather smothers her yelp with a derisory scoff. "Has this little speech actually worked on anyone?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica laughs and presses her forehead between Heather's shoulder blades and it's.. it's a lot.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"What do you want me to say, Heather?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Oh, she knows this one. "I don't want anything," Heather whispers, breath coming in short, sharp pants.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica's hand squeezes around Heather's waist. "</span>
  <em>
    <span>Bull-fucking-shit</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Tell me what you want."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I don't…" She turns to look over her shoulder, to see the dare lighting Veronica's eyes in the gloom of her bedroom. "Veronica Sawyer you goddamn bitch." She launches herself forward and presses their mouths together. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It's easy to kiss boys, to kiss McNamara, to wrest control and drag everyone down to her level. Veronica won't take direction, shifts her weight and slips her tongue and teeth in offbeat rhythm, kisses Heather like it's something to be felt, not dissected. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It's unfortunately the hottest thing she's ever experienced. Veronica kisses her, one hand on Heather's waist and the other cupping her jaw, the scrape of cotton against her skin a thrillingly uncomfortable reminder that Heather is half naked and Veronica pointedly is not and there's no decision to be made here, no bitchy comment or spiteful look to bolster her own prowess. Heather lets herself be kissed, be smoothed back against the bedsheets breathing in syncopated little gasps. Heather, god help her, </span>
  <em>
    <span>submits</span>
  </em>
  <span> to Veronica's touch and feels her thighs clench together.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When they break apart, Veronica is smiling down at her, smug and self-satisfied. "Well that's an interesting development."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Shut up," she bites out, more convincingly than her shallow breathing should allow. "I'm not your fucking lesbi-friend, Ronnie."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica shifts and presses her weight further into Heather's body, feeling more solid and less plush than Mac does, with her soft curves and pliant limbs. "I dunno, the way you're grinding into my thigh definitely says otherwise." She draws her hand away from Heather's jaw and drags a finger down Heather's throat, making her squirm in place. "Should I ask again?" Veronica presses her mouth to the tense jut of Heather's jaw, grazing her teeth down the slope of her jaw. "What do you want?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather tenses again, as Veronica moves her way down her body, the picture of control, and Heather is rapidly unravelling. "I want you to shut </span>
  <em>
    <span>up."</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica's fingers flit against the thin edge of Heather's underwear and Heather doesn't mean to arch up into it, not at all, but she's chasing the high of unfamiliar sensation and she'll be damned if she doesn't get to get the taste of this stuck behind her teeth. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She shifts her hips, lets Veronica strip her even more bare and brush the tips of her fingers where she's exposed. Veronica grins up from the apex of Heather's thighs and says, "Sure, I can shut up," before lowering her mouth.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It's… it's sloppy. Veronica doesn't have the determined practise of Heather Chandler, performing for her audience. She's not earnest like Mac or purposely incompetent like Ram. She's feeling her way through, watching for twitches, sighs, any sign of slippage. Heather's never been wetter, and she's never found herself arching up, rolling her hips like this, begging for attention where she needs it. And it is a need, the way her insides flutter and her fingers are stuck in Veronica's bird's nest of a hairdo to place her where she's aching. It's a need unfamiliar, uncomfortable, as Veronica grips her thighs and holds them apart, to be utterly out of control.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather cries out, naked but for her shitty satin bra that barely alludes to the swell of breasts she's starved herself against growing and Veronica's mouth right at her core, no artifice here, no performative groans and carefully placed muscle contractions. Heather falls apart, holding on for dear life and Veronica strokes her ungainly through it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I'm... that was. Fuck." Heather throws herself back and covers her face with cold, sweating hands, gross and uncoalesced and imperfect. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica resumes her shit-eating grin and clambours onto the bed. "So eloquent, so smooth." </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather watches her from between her fingers but does not respond, feeling the warmth slowly dissipate from her body and the familiar cold flush through. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica lies beside her, peeling Heather's hands from her face and rubbing a thumb across her cheeks. "First one's free, but next time you're gonna owe me."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather pushes the hand away and crosses her arms over her chest. "There's not gonna be a next time."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica smiles at her, sucks her lower lip between her teeth. "But you see, Heather, dearest, I know your secret. You're not so cold on the inside. I've </span>
  <em>
    <span>tasted</span>
  </em>
  <span> warmth."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather's own laugh shocks her and she smothers it with a scowl. "You are truly disgusting, you know that?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica kisses her on the forehead and smooths her hair from her face. "But you kinda like that, huh?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather lies on top of the covers until the music shuts off downstairs and Mac opens the door, smashed and singing something without much of a tune. She covers Heather's body with her own, also missing a few key items of clothing but Heather, Heather doesn't sleep a wink.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heather Duke does not </span>
  <em>
    <span>want</span>
  </em>
  <span> for anything. Certainly not when she pins Veronica to the door of the girls bathroom, biting hard at the girl's lower lip, hands fisting her shirt hard enough she might start popping buttons.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"This doesn't mean </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span>," Heather murmurs, pulling Veronica's stupid black duster out of the way, freeing up the skin on the curve of her throat.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Veronica laughs and throws her head back. "Sure it doesn't, baby." She spreads her legs, makes space for Heather to take up. "This doesn't mean anything at all."</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i'm on tumblr! <a href="http://www.bohemicns.tumblr.com">@bohemicns</a>, let's chat!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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